Olefin oligomers such as those incompassed by the instant process find use commercially as chemical intermediates. They are, for example, converted to lube oil additives or detergent alcohols. They also find use as gasoline fuel additives for increasing the octane of gasoline.
Conventional processes for preparing these olefin oligomers utilize as catalysts boron trifluoride and aluminum trichloride. Both of these catalyst types have several disadvantages. They are corrosive to the environment in which they operate. Furthermore, they must be continually added to the reaction system, recovered, and returned to the reaction system. This adds some unnecessary cost to the process. The use of a heterogeneous catalyst in a fixed bed process would alleviate the above described problems.